Petridish: Science funding

Petridish: Science funding

JacobShiach

Community sourced science funding could play a huge role in getting people vested in the work scientists are doing. A few science projects (including this magazine) have already been successfully funded using kickstarter, rockethub and similiar platforms. However the most succesful crowdfunded projects have always been product centric. Which is why I’m excited about a newcomer in crowdfunding call Petridish.org that focuses entirely on science related projects.

They’ve got a few hurdles being science specific such as the fact that the “product” in science is often just a bit of knowledge usually summed up in a paper. So making funders feel like they’re part of the research will be important. Another big hurdle is Scientists sometimes(read:mostly) get null results. Usually these results aren’t shared as they are mistakenly seen as a failure. But sharing and being clear about what null results mean will be essential to crowdfunding science and making sure funders know that their money isn’t being wasted if a project ends with null results.